My parents think I'm not autistic, now what.

Hello,

So I finally brought up the subject with my parents last night. We did a childhood autism test based on when I was 2 - 5 years old - I only scored 11 (threshold 14+) However, when we did the adult assessment based on how I am now, I scored 30 (threshold 26+) compared to my self-scored 38. I scored 77/168 (threshold 40+) with a diagnosis of OCD when I was 19.

They believe my ''autistic traits'' are a result of being in hospital a lot when I was younger (5-16), having low oxygen readings which affect brain function, and being out of normative peer social groups so I could not mirror their behaviour (naturally mirroring is a non-autistic trait.) However, when I was 17, I was starting to get a bit better health wise and I had a friend called RK. I spent a lot of time around her and her friends, they are all autistic. I saw her and her friends as a positive social group that had superior social skills than me. Some behaviour I conciously chose to take on (asking people if they're okay, giving people complements) but some autistic behaviour, we believe, I non-autistically mirrored from them (speech patterns, conversation patterns, body rocking) because I had no previous consistent model of social interaction.

The issue is if I am non-autistic and only behave in an autistic way as a 'coping mechanism' my brain has developed based on the non-autistic trait of mirroring and I had/have no other alternative social dynamic to mirror from. How will I ever know if I was 'meant to be' autistic or non-autistic from birth/biology? How do I make a non-autistic friendship group in an attempt to mirror their behaviour?

Thank-you,

Jayde.